How Is Snus Made?

Snus is made by grinding air dried tobacco leaf, mixing it with water and salt, pasteurising it with heat in a closed mixer, then cooling it and adding sodium carbonate and flavouring. The finished mixture is packed into tins either loose or measured into small pouches, and it is kept cold so it stays fresh. 18+ only. If you have ever wondered what happens between a tobacco leaf and the round tin in your fridge door, whether that fridge is in Stockholm or Umeå, this page follows every stage in order and explains why each one is there. In my opinion, knowing the reason behind a step is far more useful than knowing its name, and it makes the snus you already use easier to understand.

Think of the milk standing on the shelf just above it. It has been heated so it keeps, yet it still pours and tastes like milk, and Swedish snus is treated in very much the same spirit. So, whether you are about to buy snus for the first time or you have kept a tin beside the butter for years, this part of our Snus Guide is meant to leave you reading a label with fresh eyes. It covers the three stages of grinding, preparation and packing, then the pouch, the fridge, how snus differs from other products and a short look back at how the methods changed.

What Does A Snus Maker Start With?

A snus maker starts with air dried tobacco leaf, water, salt, an alkalising agent and, in most recipes, flavouring. The leaf itself is not necessarily grown in Sweden, because the tobacco used for Swedish snus comes from various parts of the world and is dried in the air long before it reaches a mixer. The alkalising agent is usually sodium carbonate, although sodium bicarbonate is also used, and flavouring is optional rather than essential. It could be argued that this is a remarkably short list, not much longer than the one for a loaf of rye bread, and that the craft lies in how the ingredients are handled.

If you are wondering where did snus come from, that story has its own page, and the job each ingredient does is covered in what is in snus? ingredients explained. What matters here is the order in which those ingredients meet. Water and salt arrive early, before any heat is applied, while the flavouring arrives late, once the mixture has cooled down again. Perhaps that is the most useful thing to carry away from this whole page, because it explains why the process is built in the particular sequence that the rest of this guide walks through.

How Is Snus Made, Step By Step?

Snus is made by grinding tobacco, preparing it with water, salt and heat, then packing it, in eight steps across three stages: grinding, preparation and packing. Step one is grinding, where the dried leaf is loosened, dried and ground down, then sorted into a coarse, medium or fine grade. Step two is weighing, because a maker cannot build a consistent recipe without knowing exactly how much tobacco powder is going into the mixer. If you have ever weighed out flour for cinnamon buns before a Sunday fika, you already understand why the scales come out before anything else happens in the process.

Step three is mixing, where the weighed tobacco powder is combined with water and salt inside a closed mixer. Step four is heating, and this is where the mixture is pasteurised, with the temperature and stirring controlled by computer rather than judged by eye. Step five is cooling, which matters more than it sounds, since the remaining ingredients wait until the mixture has come down from that heat. Step six is finishing, where the sodium carbonate and food grade flavourings are added. In my opinion, that pause between heating and flavouring is the quiet reason a citrus or mint note still tastes like itself in the finished tin.

Step seven is packing, and this is where the road divides between the two formats. Loose snus goes straight into its tins as a moist powder, while portion snus is first measured into a long cellulose fibre tube, sealed at intervals and cut into individual pouches. Step eight is keeping it cold, because snus is not cured and spoils faster than cured tobacco. I like to picture the whole run as a bakery, where the dough, the oven and the cooling racks each take their turn, and none of them can sensibly be skipped.

Why Does It Matter Whether The Tobacco Is Ground Coarse Or Fine?

Makers grind the leaf to a coarse, medium or fine grade, and the grade is set by the recipe. In my opinion, it is one of the main reasons two tins of snus can feel so different, in the same way that coarse and fine coffee give two different cups from the same beans. This is not a habit borrowed from the coffee world, either. In the early nineteenth century, Swedish farmers made their own snus from local tobacco and ground it in coffee grinders or in mills carved by hand, so the comparison is perhaps older than it first looks.

If you move from a fine snus to a coarse one, you may well notice the change in texture under the lip before you notice anything else. So, when a product description calls a snus coarse or fine, I would read that as a note about feel rather than about strength. It works much like a packet of coffee ground for boiling, which tells you about the grind without telling you how strong the brew will be. That small word on the label is worth a moment of your attention.

Why Is Swedish Snus Pasteurised Instead Of Fermented?

Most Swedish snus is steam pasteurised rather than fermented, because the heating step helps the mixture keep while holding the texture the recipe is aiming for. Pasteurisation uses controlled heat to make the mixture keep. The milk comparison from the start of this page holds up well here, since pasteurised milk is still milk, and pasteurised snus is still the same blend of tobacco, water and salt that went into the mixer. The heat changes how well it keeps, rather than turning it into something else entirely.

The move to pasteurisation is credited to a snus business founded in 1822, and it cut production time by several weeks. In my opinion, that saving explains a great deal about why the method spread, because a process that is quicker and more predictable is far easier to repeat batch after batch. It also explains why heating sits right in the middle of the recipe, after the salt and water have gone in and before anything delicate, such as the flavouring, is added. Every later step depends on that controlled heat having done its work first.

Where Do Loose Snus And Portion Snus Go Their Separate Ways?

Loose snus and portion snus broadly share the same preparation and only part ways at the packing stage. Loose snus goes into the tin as a moist powder, and you shape it yourself into a small pinch, either by hand or with a little cylindrical device made for the job. It is rather like taking a pinch of salt between your fingers, except that this pinch then sits under the lip. Portion snus does the shaping for you during manufacture, which is why the two formats feel so different in the hand, even though the mixture inside began in the same closed mixer.

Which format suits you is a matter of habit and taste, and I would not want to rank one above the other. Both come out of the same three stages. If you would like the wider picture of formats, sizes and styles, what types of snus are there sets them out side by side, so this page can stay with how each one is made.

How Is A Portion Pouch Filled, Sealed And Cut?

A portion pouch is made by measuring snus into a continuous tube of cellulose fibre, sealing that tube at intervals and cutting it into separate pouches. The result is very like a tiny tea bag. Each pouch carries a measured amount, and the usual weights fall into three rough sizes: a normal portion weighs about 0.8 to 1g, a mini portion about 0.5g, and a maxi portion up to about 1.7g.

The difference between original portion and white portion comes down to one choice on the line, which is whether the pouch material is moistened. Original portion, introduced in 1973, uses pouch material that is moistened during manufacture. White portion uses pouch material that is not moistened. The filling is still moist snus in both cases, and that is worth remembering, since a pale pouch tells you about the wrapper rather than about what is inside it.

In my opinion, this part of the process deserves more attention than it usually gets, because the tube, the seal and the cut shape how a pouch holds together in your fingers. That being said, choosing between original and white is simply a matter of taste. If you are new to both, I would try them side by side over a week and notice which one you reach for on a cold morning in Uppsala. If you are curious about what the pouch does once it is in place, how does snus work picks up the story where this page leaves it.

Why Is Moist Snus Kept In The Fridge?

Snus is not cured, so it spoils faster than cured tobacco, which is why it is kept in the fridge. Moist snus also contains more than 50 per cent water. For short spells the fridge is enough, and for storage of a year or more, snus can go in the freezer instead. It is the same thinking as the cube of fresh yeast that waits in the fridge until baking day, or the spare loaf you freeze before a long weekend away.

The tin plays its part in keeping snus fresh as well. Portion snus is packed in polypropylene tins, chosen mainly for keeping quality, because portion snus dries out more easily than loose snus. So, once you have taken a pouch, I would press the lid back on firmly and return the tin to the fridge, rather than leaving it on a sunny windowsill for the afternoon.

Is Nasal Snuff Or A Nicotine Pouch Made The Same Way As Snus?

No, because the method on this page belongs to snus alone. Snus is made by grinding the tobacco, mixing it with water and salt, pasteurising it, cooling it and then packing it as loose snus or portion snus.

Nasal snuff and nicotine pouches are separate products, so the stages described above should not be read as a description of how they are made. If you want to see how a nicotine pouch product is described, a range such as Zyn snus is a handy place to look.

How Has Swedish Snus Making Changed Over Time?

Swedish snus making has moved from farm kitchens to closed, computer controlled mixers, with a handful of key changes along the way. In the early nineteenth century, farmers made their own snus from local tobacco, grinding it in coffee grinders or hand carved mills. Pasteurisation later replaced slower methods and shortened production by several weeks, and before the 1970s, potash (potassium carbonate) did the alkalising job that sodium carbonate does today. Original portion pouches followed in 1973.

What strikes me most is how much of the old method survives inside the new one, since the grind, the salt, the water and the patience are all still there. So, the next time you take a tin out of the fridge, I would read the label with this process in mind. Check whether it is loose or portion, whether the pouch is original or white, and whether the description mentions a coarse or fine grind. Then put the tin straight back in the cold once you have taken what you need, because that final step of the process is the one left entirely in your hands.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Snus
• Swedish Wikipedia: Snus